Dear Bay Weekly:We look forward every Thursday to reading your most informative paper. I mailed a copy to friends who are home hunting on the Bay. They are from New England and just love Bay Country. We were on possibly our last boating cruise for the season yesterday. And, what a spectacular time it is to live on the Bay.

We have company coming for Thanksgiving. Are there other little getaway inns in the Deale area besides Herrington, Topside Inn and Pirates Cove?

Bay Weekly came to my rescue around this time last year. I came to your new BW home in Deale and your staff hunted down back issues on the skipjack Rebecca T. Ruark. I chartered Capt. Wade Murphys wonderfully, oldest true skipjack on the Bay for my boyfriend, Ricks, birthday. We sailed last November 10. Boy, what a treat! And to think she was on the bottom of the Bay the year before.

Capt. Wadey, as locals call him, put Rick to the helm as I helped cull the catch of oysters, horseshoe crabs and jellyfish under bright sunshiny skies. It was just the three of us for five fantastic hours full of Rebecca stories. A trip of a lifetime, and I thank you, ever so belatedly, for helping us enjoy our local treasure, Chesapeake Bay.

Thank you so much for your wonderful paper. Its the best on the Bay; the best dang read anywhere! Martha Montgomery, aboardWyldwud at Herrington Harbour South

Editors note: In Southern Anne Arundel County, those are the spots to stay that wed look to. But youll find B&Bs in North Beach, including the Bayfront home of Mayor Mark Frazer. Look on the web at www.ci.north-beach.md.us.

The Osprey Have Landed

Dear Bay Weekly:As I prepare for a personal migration to the Amazon (I will not be wearing a transmitter), I wanted to update you all on the whereabouts and well-being, or lack thereof, of the osprey we have been tracking via satellite.

Ms. Charlotte and HX are indeed on their wintering grounds. HX settled in at the exact same place as last year: the delta of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. Almost surely, Ms. Charlotte is on familiar ground in Amazonian Peru, although this is the first time weve tracked her. Were still getting good signals from both of them.

KC arrived on his wintering area on October 9, having covered a little over 3,100 miles in 26 days. Hes in the Venezuelan state of Apure. See his maps at www.birdsofprey.org, migration.

Not such good news, I fear, for our other two females. KB was never heard from again after landing on a boat just north of Venezuela in September. And we have lost contact with KD. She also landed on a boat and spent a couple of days on board before surprising us and returning to Haiti. We got signals from her for a while and then nothing after October 16. We can hope one or both will show up in the spring with a malfunctioning radio, but its more likely that they perished. Its not unlikely that one or both were shot off the boats they landed on.

Much as we hate to lose birds, we do have to remember that theres about a 15 percent mortality rate during the migration and wintering periods, and quite a few birds do get shot in South America.

Sometime in February or March, we should see the birds heading north.

Follow other ospreys at the Highway to the Tropics Program at the Minnesota Raptor Centers website: www.raptor.cvm.umn.edu.